I was at a conference last week, and a colleague of mine bemoaned that with Facebook and Twitter and the rest of the social media sites, there really is no such thing as privacy anymore–and we’ve given it up voluntarily.
My response was to ask whether he’d ever lived in a small town. Because if you hail from a small town, you know that there are pros and cons to being in a place where everyone not only knows your name–but where you’ve been and what you had for dinner last night.
In a small town, people feel as if they know each other because they see one another around a lot. They’re not really best friends–but they make small talk, something that doesn’t happen much in a big city. And since everyone knows everyone else, talking about what other people are doing is high entertainment.
As a business person, it also means that you have plenty of opportunities throughout your day to make a good impression, say hello, remind someone that you are waiting to hear back from them or recommend a good book. In other words, to make human connections.
Having a good reputation in a small town will get you far. And having a bad reputation will sink you. There’s no place to hide because everyone knows where you live.
Where am I going with this as far as business and social media?
I hear a lot of small business owners struggling with what to do with social media and how to use it. It seems alien and mysterious to them. But those same business owners would be right at home in a small town, saying hi to people who are “friendly strangers” and wishing someone a happy birthday and making chit-chat about a good TV show or the local team’s win. And business owners know that being seen and being friendly is a big step toward winning new customers.
Has the light bulb gone on yet? Social media is bringing a sense of that small town connectedness to the bigger world. There’s a sense of transparency that may be new to big city folks but that everyone from a small town understands. There’s a “superficial” friendliness that doesn’t imply that someone is a confidant, but that makes a brief human connection. And there’s the chance to pass along news, a good story, a funny joke, or something interesting to your friends.
Are you starting to get ideas yet? You use blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the other Web 2.0 tools to create the same sense of community. It’s the biggest small town in the whole world. You know how to network with your neighbors. You understand how to being friendly creates new customers. You do it in your neighborhood offline. Now it’s time to rethink your boundaries.
Who are the people in your neighborhood? The people that you Tweet each day.
Tags: blogging, Facebook, Flickr, networking, small business, social media, social networking, start-up business, Twitter, YouTube
April 28, 2009 at 7:47 pm |
I think the small town analogy. I think this is crucial in terms of business thinking in the social media world, but also something to be very careful about doing. As you mentioned, having a bad reputation in a small town will “sink you” because everyone knows where you live, the same is true in the world of social media. And regardless of whether or not your business is playing in the internet space, communicating with your neighbors, your customers are already talking about you.
To take it a step further, it’s exciting to know that the conversations that happen when you aren’t in the room in your small town, you can now ease drop in as a “fly on the wall” so to speak, using various tools on the web to listen to and observe your customers’ actions. Exciting stuff. Thanks for the post.
April 29, 2009 at 1:01 am |
I think social media is a great opportunity for smaller businesses and brands to have the same marketing advantages as larger companies.